Katanga: The Congo's Forgotten Crisis

Nairobi/Brussels  |   9 Jan 2006

Tensions in Katanga province could lead to acute violence in the March elections unless domestic and international actors move now to reform the army, rein in militias and eradicate impunity and corruption.

Katanga: The Congo’s Forgotten Crisis,* the latest report from the International Crisis Group, warns that renewed frictions in the nation’s most mineral-rich province need to be addressed immediately – even before elections in March 2006. Without waiting for a new government to be in place, the transitional government needs to act to integrate Mai-Mai militias into the national army, eliminate parallel chains of command, and eradicate corruption, particularly in the mining sector. Otherwise, there is little hope elections will produce a stable, legitimate government.

“Katanga is the heartland of national politics and the nation’s potentially richest province, but it has been ignored by the international community”, says Jason Stearns, Crisis Group Senior Analyst. “Elections alone will not solve the problems of Katanga – impunity, corruption and violence are tightly linked and need to be tackled together”.

Three conflicts are rocking Katanga and have set the stage for a tense election: rivalries between southerners and northerners, between outsiders and natives and between Mai-Mai militias and the national army. The uneven balance of power in the province, as well as the mismanagement of the natural resources, have fuelled tensions between northerners and southerners. Election campaigning has reignited old tensions between native Katangans and immigrant Luba from Kasai province, which degenerated into ethnic cleansing in the past. Mai-Mai militias formed to fight Rwandan-backed rebels during the 1998 war have also become a major source of violence.

To help secure the province, the UN Mission (MONUC) should deploy a brigade of 2,500 more peacekeepers to Katanga to deal with Mai-Mai militias and to prevent urban unrest during elections. Weakness and corruption of state institutions have compounded the violence: parallel chains of command in the army and the administration need to be broken up and the judicial system strengthened to curb abuses of power. International donors, who contribute over half the national budget, should tie aid to good governance.

“It is far past time to address these problems and allow real development and democratic accountability to take root”, says Suliman Baldo, Crisis Group’s Africa Program Director. “Waiting until after the elections has matters the wrong way around”.